Ancient Man in Britain

CHAPTER XI

Races of Britain and Ireland

Colours of Ancient Races and Mythical Ages—Caucasian Race Theory—The Aryan or Indo-European Theory—Races and Languages—Celts and Teutons—Fair and Dark Palæolithic Peoples in Modern Britain—Mediterranean Man—The Armenoid or Alpine Broad-heads—Ancient British Tribes—Cruithne and Picts—The Picts of the "Brochs" as Pirates and Traders—Picts and Fairies—Scottish Types—Racial "Pockets".

The race problem has ever been one of engrossing interest to civilized peoples. In almost every old mythology we meet with theories that were formulated to account for the existence of the different races living in the world, and for the races that were supposed to have existed for a time and became extinct. An outstanding feature of each racial myth is that the people among whom it grew up are invariably represented to be the finest type of humanity.

A widespread habit, and one of great antiquity, was to divide the races, as the world was divided, into four sections, and to distinguish them by their colours. The colours were those of the cardinal points and chiefly Black, White, Red, and Yellow. The same system was adopted in dealing with extinct races. Each of these were coloured according to the Age in which they had existence, and the colours were connected with metals. In Greece and India, for instance, the "Yellow Age" was a "Golden Age", the "White Age" a "Silver Age", the "Red Age" a "Bronze Age", and the "Black Age" an "Iron Age".

Although the old theories regarding the mythical ages and mythical races have long been discarded, the habit of dividing mankind and their history into four sections, according to colours and the metals chiefly used by them, is not yet extinct. We still speak of the "Black man", the "Yellow man", the "Red man", and the "White man". Archæologists have divided what they call the "pre-history of mankind" into the two "Stone Ages", the "Bronze Age" and the "Iron Age". The belief that certain races have become extinct as the result of conquest by invaders is still traceable in those histories that refer, for instance, to the disappearance of "Stone Age man" or "Bronze Age man", or of the British Celts, or of the Picts of Scotland.

That some races have completely disappeared there can be no shadow of a doubt. As we have seen, Neanderthal man entirely vanished from the face of the globe, and has not left a single descendant among the races of mankind. In our own day the Tasmanians have become extinct. These cases, however, are exceptional. The complete extinction of a race is an unusual thing in the history of mankind. A section may vanish in one particular area and yet persist in another. As a rule, in those districts where races are supposed to have perished, it is found that they have been absorbed by intruders. In some cases the chief change has been one of racial designation and nationality.

Crô-Magnon man, who entered Europe when the Neanderthals were hunting the reindeer and other animals, is still represented in our midst. Dr. Collignon, the French ethnologist, who has found many representatives of this type in the Dordogne valley where their ancestors lived in the decorated cave-dwellings before their organization was broken up by the Azilian and other intruders, shows that the intrusion of minorities of males rarely leaves a permanent change in a racial type. The alien element tends to disappear. "When", he writes, "a race is well seated in a region, fixed to the soil by agriculture, acclimatized by natural selection and sufficiently dense, it opposes, for the most precise observations confirm it, an enormous resistance to new-comers, whoever they may be." Intruders of the male sex only may be bred out in time.

Our interest here is with the races of Britain and Ireland, but, as our native islands were peopled from the Continent, we cannot ignore the evidence afforded by Western and Northern Europe when dealing with our own particular phase of the racial problem.

It is necessary in the first place to get rid of certain old theories that were based on imperfect knowledge or wrong foundations. One theory applies the term "Caucasian Man" to either a considerable section or the majority of European peoples. "The utter absurdity of the misnomer Caucasian, as applied to the blue-eyed and fair-haired Aryan (?) race of Western Europe, is revealed", says Ripley,91 "by two indisputable facts. In the first place, this ideal blond type does not occur within many hundred miles of Caucasia; and, secondly, nowhere along the great Caucasian chain is there a single native tribe making use of a purely inflectional or Aryan language."

The term "Aryan" is similarly a misleading one. It was invented by Professor Max Müller and applied by him chiefly to a group of languages at a time when races were being identified by the languages they spoke. These peoples—with as different physical characteristics as have Indians and Norseman, or Russians and Spaniards, who spoke Indo-European, or, as German scholars have patriotically adapted the term, Indo-Germanic languages—were regarded by ethnologists of the "philological school" as members of the one Indo-European or Aryan race or "family". Language, however, is no sure indication of race. The spread of a language over wide areas may be accounted for by trade or political influence or cultural contact. In our own day the English language is spoken by "Black", "Yellow", and "Red", as well as by "White" peoples.

A safer system is to distinguish racial types by their physical peculiarities. When, however, this system is applied in Europe, as elsewhere, we shall still find differences between peoples. Habits of thought and habits of life exercise a stronger influence over individuals, and groups of individuals, than do, for instance, the shape of their heads, the colours of their hair, eyes, and skin, or the length and strength of their limbs. Two particular individuals may be typical representatives of a distinct race and yet not only speak different languages, but have a different outlook on life, and different ideas as to what is right and what is wrong. Different types of people are in different parts of the world united by their sense of nationality. They are united by language, traditions, and beliefs, and by their love of a particular locality in which they reside or in which their ancestors were wont to reside. A sense of nationality, such as unites the British Empire, may extend to far-distant parts of the world.

EUROPEAN TYPES

I, Mediterranean. II, Crô-Magnon. III, Armenoid (Alpine). IV, Northern.

But, while conscious of the uniting sense of nationality, our people are at the same time conscious of and interested in their physical differences and the histories of different sections of our countrymen. The problem as to whether we are mainly Celtic or mainly Teutonic is one of perennial interest.

Here again, when dealing with the past, we meet with the same condition of things that prevail at the present day. Both the ancient Celts and the people they called Teutons ("strangers") were mixed peoples with different physical peculiarities. The Celts known to the Greeks were a tall, fair-haired people. In Western Europe, as has been indicated, they mingled with the dark Iberians, and a section of the mingled races was known to the Romans as Celtiberians. The Teutons included the tall, fair, long-headed Northerners, and the dark, medium-sized, broad-headed Central Europeans. Both the fair Celts and the fair Teutons appear to have been sections of the northern race known to antiquaries as the "Baltic people", or "Maglemosians", who entered Europe from Siberia and "drifted" along the northern and southern shores of the Baltic Sea—the ancient "White Sea" of the "White people" of the "White North". As we have seen, other types of humanity were "drifting" towards Britain at the same time—that is, before the system of polishing stone implements and weapons inaugurated what has been called the "Neolithic Age".

As modern-day ethnologists have found that the masses of the population in Great Britain and Ireland are of the early types known to archæologists as Palæolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age men, the race history of our people may be formulated as follows:

The earliest inhabitants of our islands whose physical characteristics can be traced among the living population were the Crô-Magnon peoples. These were followed by the fair Northerners, the "carriers" of Maglemosian culture, and the dark, medium-sized Iberians, who were the "carriers" of Azilian-Tardenoisian culture. There were thus fair people in England, Scotland, and Ireland thousands of years before the invasions of Celts, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norsemen, or Danes.

For a long period, extending over many centuries, the migration "stream" from the Continent appears to have been continuously flowing. The carriers of Neolithic culture were in the main Iberians of Mediterranean racial type—the descendants of the Azilian-Tardenoisian peoples who used bows and arrows, and broke up the Magdalenian civilization of Crô-Magnon man in western and central Europe. This race appears to have been characterized in north and north-east Africa. "So striking", writes Professor Elliot Smith, "is the family likeness between the early Neolithic peoples of the British Isles and the Mediterranean and the bulk of the population, both ancient and modern, of Egypt and East Africa, that a description of the bones of an Early Briton of that remote epoch might apply in all essential details to an inhabitant of Somaliland."92

This proto-Egyptian (Iberian) people were of medium stature, had long skulls and short narrow faces, and skeletons of slight and mild build; their complexions were as dark as those of the southern Italians in our own day, and they had dark-brown or black hair with a tendency to curl; the men had scanty facial hair, except for a chin-tuft beard.

These brunets introduced the agricultural mode of life, and, as they settled on the granite in south-western England, appear to have searched for gold there, and imported flint from the settlers on the upper chalk formation.

In time Europe was invaded from Asia Minor by increasing numbers of an Asiatic, broad-headed, long-bearded people of similar type to those who had filtered into Central Europe and reached Belgium and Denmark before Neolithic times. This type is known as the "Armenoid race" (the "Alpine race" of some writers). It was quite different from the long-headed and fair Northern type and the short, brunet Mediterranean (proto-Egyptian and Iberian) type. The Armenoid skeletons found in the early graves indicate that the Asiatics were a medium-sized, heavily-built people, capable, as the large bosses on their bones indicate, of considerable muscular development.

During the archæological Bronze Age these Armenoids reached Britain in considerable numbers, and introduced the round-barrow method of burial. They do not appear, however, as has been indicated, to have settled in Ireland.

At a later period Britain was invaded by a people who cremated their dead. As they thus destroyed the evidence that would have afforded us an indication of their racial affinities, their origin is obscure.

While these overland migrations were in progress, considerable numbers of peoples appear to have reached Britain and Ireland by sea from northern and north-western France, Portugal, and Spain. They settled chiefly in the areas where metals and pearls were once found or are still found. "Kitchen middens" and megalithic remains are in Ireland mainly associated with pearl-yielding rivers.

The fair Celts and the darker Celtiberians were invading and settling in Britain before and after the Romans first reached its southern shores. During the Roman period, the ruling caste was mainly of south-European type, but the Roman legions were composed of Gauls, Germans, and Iberians, as well as Italians. No permanent change took place in the ethnics of Britain during the four centuries of Roman occupation. The Armenoid broad-heads, however, became fewer: "the disappearance", as Ripley puts it, "of the round-barrow men is the last event of the prehistoric period which we are able to distinguish". The inhabitants of the British Isles are, on the whole, long-headed. "Highland and lowland, city or country, peasant or philosopher, all are", says Ripley, "practically alike in respect to this fundamental racial characteristic." Broad-headed types are, of course, to be found, but they are in the minority.

Valentine

RUINS OF PICTISH TOWER AT CARLOWAY, LEWIS

Modern "black house" in the foreground.

The chief source of our knowledge regarding the early tribes or little nations of Britain and Ireland is the work of Ptolemy, the geographer, who lived between a.d. 50 and 150, from which the earliest maps were compiled in the fourth century. He shows that England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were divided among a number of peoples. The Dumnonii,93 as has been stated, were in possession of Devon and Cornwall, as well as of a large area in the south-western and central lowlands of Scotland. Near them were the Durotriges, who were also in Ireland. Sussex was occupied by the Regni and Kent by the Cantion. The Atrebates, the Belgæ, and the Parisii were invaders from Gaul during the century that followed Cæsar's invasion. The Belgæ lay across the neck of the land between the Bristol Channel and the Isle of Wight; the Atrebates clung to the River Thames, while the Parisii, who gave their name to Paris, occupied the east coast between the Wash and the Humber. Essex was the land of the Iceni or Eceni, the tribe of Boadicea (Boudicca). Near them were the Catuvellauni (men who rejoiced in battle) who were probably rulers of a league, and the Trinovantes, whose name is said to signify "very vigorous". The most important tribe of the north and midlands of England was the Brigantes,94 whose sphere of influence extended to the Firth of Forth, where they met the Votadini, who were probably kinsmen or allies. On the north-west were the Setantii, who appear to have been connected with the Brigantes in England and Ireland. Cuchullin, the hero of the Red Branch of Ulster, was originally named Setanta.95 In south Wales the chief tribe was the Silures, whose racial name is believed to cling to the Scilly (Silura) Islands. They were evidently like the Dumnonii a metal-working people. South-western Wales was occupied by the Demetæ (the "firm folk"). In south-western Scotland, the Selgovæ ("hunters") occupied Galloway, their nearest neighbours being the Novantæ of Wigtownshire. The Selgovæ may have been those peoples known later as the Atecotti. From Fife to southern Aberdeenshire the predominant people on the east were the Vernicones. In north-east Aberdeenshire were the Tæxali. To the west of these were the Vacomagi. The Caledonians occupied the Central Highlands from Inverness southward to Loch Lomond. In Ross-shire were the Decantæ, a name resembling Novantæ and Setantii. The Lugi and Smertæ (smeared people) were farther north. The Cornavii of Caithness and North Wales were those who occupied the "horns" or "capes". Along the west of Scotland were peoples called the Cerones, Creones, and Carnonacæ, or Carini, perhaps a sheep-rearing people. The Epidii were an Argyll tribe, whose name is connected with that of the horse—perhaps a horse-god.96 Orkney enshrines the tribal name of the boar—perhaps that of the ancient boar-god represented on a standing stone near Inverness with the sun symbol above its head. The Gaelic name one horse-stone remains in an old church tower.] of the Shetlanders is "Cat". Caithness is the county of the "Cat" people, too. Professor Watson reminds us that the people of Sutherland are still "Cats" in Gaelic, and that the Duke of Sutherland is referred to as "Duke of the Cats".

The Picts are not mentioned by Ptolemy. They appear to have been an agricultural and sea-faring people who (c. a.d. 300) engaged in trade and piracy. A flood of light has been thrown on the Pictish problem by Professor W. J. Watson, Edinburgh.97 He shows that when Agricola invaded Scotland (a.d. 85) the predominant people were the Caledonians. Early in the third century the Caledonians and Mæatæ—names which included all the tribes north of Hadrian's Wall—were so aggressive that Emperor Septimus Severus organized a great expedition against them. He pressed northward as far as the southern shore of the Moray Firth, and, although he fought no battle, lost 50,000 men in skirmishes, &c. The Caledonians and Mæatæ rose again, and Severus was preparing a second expedition when he died at York in a.d. 211. His son, Caracalla, withdrew from Scotland altogether. The Emperor Constantius, who died at York in a.d. 306, had returned from an expedition, not against the Caledonians, but against the Picts. The Picts were beginning to become prominent. In 360 they had again to be driven back. They had then become allies of the Scots from Ulster, who were mentioned in a.d. 297 by the orator Eumenius, as enemies of the Britons in association with the Picti. Professor Watson, drawing on Gaelic evidence, dates the first settlement of the Scots in Argyll "about a.d. 180".

In 368 the Caledonians were, like the Verturiones, a division of the Picts. Afterwards their tribal name disappeared. That the Picts and Caledonians were originally separate peoples is made clear by the statement of a Roman orator who said: "I do not mention the woods and marshes of the Caledonians, the Picts, and others". In 365 the Pecti, Saxons, Scots, and Atecotti harassed the Britons. Thus by the fourth century the Picts had taken the place of the Caledonians as the leading tribe, or as the military aristocrats of a great part of Scotland, the name of which, formerly Caledonia, came to be Pictland, Pictavia.

Who then were the Picts? Professor Watson shows that the racial name is in old Norse "Pettr", in Old English "Peohta", and in old Scots "Pecht"98 These forms suggest that the original name was "Pect". Ammianus refers to the "Pecti". In old Welsh "Peith-wyr" means "Pict-men" and "Peith" comes from "Pect". The derivation from the Latin "pictus" (painted) must therefore be rejected. It should be borne in mind in this connection that the Ancient Britons stained their bodies with woad. The application of the term "painted" to only one section of them seems improbable. "Pecti", says Professor Watson, "cannot be separated etymologically from Pictones, the name of a Gaulish tribe on the Bay of Biscay south of the Loire, near neighbours of the Veneti. Their name shows the same variation between Pictones and Pectones. We may therefore claim Pecti as a genuine Celtic word. It is of the Cymric or Old British and Gaulish type, not of the Gaelic type, for Gaelic has no initial P, while those others have." Gildas (c. a.d. 570), Bede (c. a.d. 730), and Nennius (c. a.d. 800) refer to the Picts as a people from the north of Scotland. Nennius says they occupied Orkney first. The legends which connect the Picts with Scythia and Hercules were based on Virgil's mention of "picti Agathyrsi" and "picti Geloni" (Æneid IV, 146, Georgics, II, 115) combined with the account by Herodotus (IV, 10) of the descent of Gelonus and Agathyrsus from Hercules. Of late origin therefore was the Irish myth that the Picts from Scythia were called Agathyrsi and were descended from Gelon, son of Hercules.

There never were Picts in Ireland, except as visitors. The theory about the Irish Picts arose by mistranslating the racial name "Cruithne" as "Picts". Communities of Cruithne were anciently settled in the four provinces of Ireland, but Cruithne means Britons not Picts.

Valentine

A SCOTTISH "BROCH" (Mousa, Shetland Isles)

Compare with Sardinian Nuraghe, page 136.

The ancient name of Great Britain was Albion, while Ireland was in Greek "Ierne", and in Latin "Iubernia" (later "Hibernia"). The racial name was applied by Pliny to Albion and Hibernia when he referred to the island group as "Britanniæ". Ptolemy says that Albion is "a Britannic isle" and further that Albion (England and Scotland) was an island "belonging to the Britannic Isles". Ireland was also a Britannic isle. It is therefore quite clear that the Britons were regarded as the predominant people in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and that the verdict of history includes Ireland in the British Isles. The Britons were P-Celts, and their racial name "Pretan-Pritan" became in the Gaelic language of the Q-Celts "Cruithen", plural "Cruithne".

In Latin the British Isles are called after their inhabitants, the rendering being "Britanni", while in Greek it is "Pretannoi" or "Pretanoi". As Professor W. J. Watson and Professor Sir J. Morris Jones, two able and reliable philologists, have insisted, the Greek form is the older and more correct, and the Latin form is merely an adaptation of the Greek form.